Which philosophical question defines your life or your pursuit of knowledge?
arthur.. easy on the cake
>>9966750
The vertiginous question
>>9966750
What doth life?
How do you get faster at reading?
Have you tried caring less about if you understand what you're reading?
>>9966759
well then what's the point?
>actually reading books
Philosopher majors of /lit/, how is/was it? I'm strongly considering majoring in it in college.
>The academic discipline & an undergraduate degree in it
Bad for various reasons
>Philosophy itself
Good if you're cut out for it
>Getting a degree in it and tolerating the state of the discipline
Possibly OK, if you can ride the tiger
Currently philosophy is similar to Nietzsche's characterisation of academia as a harem guarded by eunuchs (scholars), i.e., forever guarding and tending and watching over what you can't really touch, and what would be useless to you even if you could touch it.
North American and ESPECIALLY British philosophy departments are nightmare hellscapes of piss-poor analytic philosophy, laggards to assimilate continental philosophy and join it with a childishly unsophisticated neo-pragmatism, which, even if you happen to like it for some reason, still won't give you enough interaction with continental thought in a holistic manner.
Anglosphere philosophy departments are split 50/50 between, on the one hand, a bunch of hidebound logic-chopping analytics tending their walled gardens, as a volcano erupts in the distance that will soon annihilate them and everything they ever worked for, and on the other hand, the aforementioned neo-pragmatists who have managed to smuggle in some more dynamic continental thinkers by immersing them in the more fluid medium provided by pragmatist considerations for flexibility and kinda-sorta-discursivity.
But it's much better to study the pragmatists and continentals EQUALLY, on equal terms, while learning philosophy historically (still a major stumbling block for analytic departments), and make up your own mind from there - not to try to work backwards to an appreciation of continental thought from Richard Rorty or Robert fucking Brandom and their eclectic, half-understood appropriations of continental thinkers.
If you are analytically minded, then you might do fine. The problem is that you don't get the opportunity to CHOOSE whether or not you are, in an Anglosphere department. You are given the aforementioned 50/50 set of choices, and that's it. Even if you thrive in that environment, who is to say you wouldn't have thrived more with more continental exposure?
All of this has bearing on how stereotyped you will be by the time you apply to grad school. If you do nothing but study Rorty and Sellars, or god forbid some stilted logico-mathematical philosophy of algorithms for 4 years, you will probably be applying to study similar things in grad school, which will then immerse you even more deeply and make it even harder to broaden your horizons. And while that's going on, maybe some parallel universe version of you, who stumbled upon Heidegger or Ricoeur, and forced your way through them without the help of a class, discovered his love of continental hermeneutics and had a much more fulfilling career with totally different prospects.
>>9966798
tldr: A Philosophy major is OK, as long as you understand it's EXTREMELY walled-in and railroaded in English-speaking departments.
DO NOT assume that what they are teaching you is "Philosophy." Look at it more like the equivalent of: You are studying statistics, but the department is just called "Mathematics." For whatever reason, the mathematics department thinks that "mathematics" in a general sense is equal to "statistics." You might learn some non-statistics math there, but it will be in a very limited and general way, and only in order to improve your performance in doing statistical mathematics. If you want a non-stats math education, you're going to have to do it on your own - you're going to have to go explore the Physics department, where all the non-stats math people (pure math, let's say) are hiding out.
Similar situation with Anglosphere Philosophy departments. If you want to study non-analytic/non-neopragmatist philosophy, you're going to have to go find the crypto-continental philosophers in the Comp Lit department, and mostly you're just going to have to figure that shit out on your own and study it on the side.
Hey, I just picked up a copy of August 1914 from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and I was wondering what to expect from the book. Basically bought it for a few cents and the decision was heavily influenced by this board.
It is in German and I thought I might give it a try.
Stupid decision? Is it a good starting point or would you recommend another one of his works?
What's the best book on norse mythology/history and what translation?
Dude smoked way too much weed. There's like 100 pages of a good story in between 600 pages of some dwarves travelling and stopping for parsleys, onions, cabbages and turnips. Someone convince me im wrong
How does one write a successful allegory? Something that can be understood for what it is by the attentive reader, but at the same time doesn't preach and isn't targeted exclusively towards a small and specific audience with the same beliefs as the author?
Just finished reading the Inferno. I think its the best storu told. However, I would like /lits/ interpertation on it.
Which translation did you read? It is a pretty amazing work.
>>9965384
Wow OP, you speak Italian?
I read the Robert M. Durling translation.
I thought it was just a meme book but it really was a great read. Sort of like a redpill on morality.
>waaahhh I'm very handsome and have a large penis and people like to be around me and beautiful women want to have sex with me all the time
>please feel sympathy for me
>please
>post the first page of your best (and that means completed) short story/novella/novel
I made another book trailer to put online. What do you think?
I don't know, guys. I'm doing my best.
https://youtu.be/dYPZ0ErCxkc
>when you see the large acknowledgements section of a modern non fiction book filled with famous academics and writers and realise there is a huge smart person club that you'll never be connected enough, rich enough, or smart enough to enter
I have a question for all you philosophy majors out there. Currently I'm reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus and I'm stuck at 3.333. I understood it except for the last part
"This is at once clear, if instead of "F(Fu)” we write “(∃φ):F(φu) . φu = Fu”."
Understanding it seems to be arbitrary for now since what is written before it gets the point across but just of sheer curiosity I'd like to understand what the elements of “(∃φ):F(φu) . φu = Fu” mean.
Can someone share an invite to the lit discord?
Thanks
Is Freud having a comeback?
https://aeon.co/essays/from-philosophy-to-psychoanalysis-a-classic-freudian-move